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Alec Twelve Trees was more than usually silent and his father was worried. Ever since Annie had stepped between them, then found a way to bring them together, their relationship had improved immeasurably. They could talk without shouting, disagree without anger. Tommy was proud of Alec for the way he’d stood up to his mistake, apologized, and made amends. He knew his son still mourned for his mother in the night, for he could sometimes hear a sorrowful chant echoing through their cottage. Yet when he asked, Alec told him there was nothing wrong. Tommy didn’t believe it, but he’d learned not to push his sensitive son.
The silversmith entered the stable one morning; Tommy dunked a horseshoe into the vat of water, then laid it aside.
“Pad.” It was an abbreviation of “padre” which Alec had invented as a boy and had recently begun to use again. Tommy heard the hesitation in his tones but decided to ignore it.
“What’s up?” he inquired. When his son didn’t answer, he asked more seriously, “Something on your mind?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I’ve been thinking of buying Owen’s place.”
“Oh, yeah? How come?”
“I thought it would be a good idea to set up a real shop. Not that I don’t have enough room here...” Alec’s hand flicked toward his workspace. “I just feel it’s time for me to be... more professional.”
“Hmmm,” answered the blacksmith, imitating his friend Donovan. He’d realized recently that it was a good way to stall for time. Trying to read between his son’s words was no mean feat, for Tommy wasn’t given much to deep thought. What was his son really feeling? Loneliness in the house where his mother had lived? The need to strike out on his own as all young men did eventually? Stifled by his father? Or maybe, just maybe, getting a home ready for his future wife? Tommy knew how his son felt about Irene Donovan, though he’d made no attempt at courting her. Was he trying to impress Irene, show her he was older and more mature—more able to support her than the other young men who admired her? Tommy couldn’t dismiss the idea, though he didn’t know how much of a chance Alec might have. Yet he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the vivacious beauty as his daughter.
“Seems like it might be the right thing t’ do. Need any help?”
Alec’s breath of relief wasn’t lost on the smith. “Not just yet. But later, I want to turn the big room back into a parlor, and the bedroom into my shop. I thought I’d ask you and Daniel to help with the plans.”
“Sure thing. You get Dan’l t’ draw somethin’ up an’ the three of us’ll put it t’gether. You talk t’ Owen yet?”
“I wanted to talk to you first.”
Tommy’s heart thudded in his chest, but he just chuckled. “You make sure he don't take all your money, son. You need enough left t’ have a sign painted!”
But the sign, when it was time to hang it, was carved by Frank Donovan. He copied the symbol of Twelve Trees and added a single word, SILVERSMITH. Tommy hung it proudly while his son looked on.
It was the third new sign to go up in White’s Station in the month of May. For Owen had found the mercantile’s original sign in the back room and asked Annie to repaint it. His store now boasted it was the WHITE’S STATION TRADING POST. Wang Shen had hung a new sign, too: HARDWARE AND FEED. His partnership with Owen had resulted in the transfer of the dry goods business to the Trading Post, and the bootmaker had, in turn, turned over all of the farm implements and tools to the Chinese proprietor. Wang Lei was working with Owen on stock and suppliers until he went off to school, and Wang Shen would handle most of the bookkeeping for both stores, a task Owen had always hated; all Owen had to do was track the individual credits and debits.
They’d agreed that both shops would run a single account for each customer or family—purchases at one store could be offset by payments at the other, or acceptance of goods at either. Shen would continue to deal with the traders and the trappers, while Owen would take in the Navajos’ goods and display them in his store. Both stores were supplied with common foodstuffs—rice and flour, beans and salt—but the seeds were at the hardware store, along with the hoes and plows. Ready-made clothes as well as fabrics were found at the mercantile along with most of the food, household supplies, lamps and bric-a-brac. John Patrick declared the scheme to be “eminently practical.”
***
BEFORE ROBERT TAYLOR departed, he took himself out to the Donovan ranch. He was sure he’d been cheated—that John Patrick had closed his accounts in order to let his friend get a better deal on the trading post. He was ready to accuse and to demand his rights when he rapped on the green door.
It was opened by Irene. Taylor had been infatuated with her for years and the look of scorn she gave him deflated him completely. When he asked for her father, she told him to wait and shut the door between them. He cringed at the snub—the Donovan home was always open to any who came to call.
By the time John Patrick came out to the porch, Taylor was crushing his hat in his hands. He followed Donovan down the steps and only stopped when the older man did, right beside the buggy. John Patrick had not said a word.
The merchant gathered up his scant courage. “Why did you ruin me?” he asked in a strained, pitiful voice. “What did I do?”
The older man looked out over his land, toward the canyons in the west. “Your wife, Taylor, has a tongue that is sharper than a serpent’s tooth. She has been the cause of two deaths in this town.” He stared at the merchant, his lip curling, his brogue becoming thick. “You are not welcome here. I had never thought to say that to any man. But in my country, a man is responsible for his wife, for his family. I hold you responsible for the harm she has done.” He took Taylor’s arm in his weathered hand, helped him ungently into the buggy. In a voice of quiet rage, he continued, “She will slander me and mine no more. And if you have the brains of a moon-calf, you will shut her mouth. Before someone beats her to death.”
The old man’s anger finally penetrated Taylor’s weak mind. He turned his buggy around, setting the horses at a gallop down the lane. But when he got to the gate, he pulled up to stare at the Donovan brand overhead. His eyes filled with tears. He’d been proud of his place in White’s Station, enjoyed the prestige of being heir to the town’s founder, reveled in the power of owning the only mercantile north of Prescott. Now it was gone—all gone. And he’d never see Irene Donovan again.
By the time he got home, Taylor had worked himself into a state of hysteria. He flew up the stairs to his apartment and ran through the rooms shouting for his wife. He found her dusting in the spare bedroom, grabbed her by the arms and pushed her onto the bed. “What did you say to him? What did you say to Donovan?”
“Nothing. What, when? Nothing.” She stood, one hand reaching for his arm, but he shoved her away.
“What did you say about him? about his family?”
“Nothing.” She cowered against the wall, her face white and screwed up in thought. “What do you mean ‘his family’?”
“Family! You know, his mother, his wife, sons, daughters. The Griffiths. The Travers girl. The grandchildren. They’re all his family!” He saw the light of revelation on her face. “What did you say?”
“Oh, it was nothing, really,”—she waved a careless hand—“just that thing about the Indian.”
“What thing?”
“You know, about the Travers girl and the Indian.”
Taylor groaned and clutched his head in both hands, swayed on his feet. Two deaths, the old man said. And her brother had killed the smith’s wife. But what about the other—who else had died? The brother. But Adam Donovan had killed him—that couldn’t be her fault. There must be someone else. The old man. Old Man Travers. Could it kill a sick old man to hear something like that about his daughter?
“You made it up?” He grabbed her, shook her. “Was it a lie? Was it?”
She shrugged. “Well, you know how he’d go out there visiting when the brother was in jail. It could have been true. It certainly seemed that way to me.”
He slapped her hard across the mouth, and then again. She fell on the bed, blood running from her lip, a scarlet stream against her pallid face.
“It seemed that way? It could have been?” He hit her again, then collapsed in a heap on the floor. “You’ve ruined my life! You’ve ruined me!” He buried his head in his hands, sobbing wildly.
When he was able to look up again, she was still staring at him. He remembered John Patrick’s words, “before somebody beats her to death”. He was sorely tempted. But he got to his feet, turned his back on her, swayed against the doorway, then pulled the door shut behind him, fumbled through his pockets for the keys, and locked her in.
Staggering like a drunk to the stage office, he purchased a single ticket to San Antonio, another to California. He marched unsteadily into the bank and withdrew all his money in cash over Thatcher’s protests, who begged him to take a draft. Back at home, he packed a carpetbag with clean clothes, grabbed his best hat and slapped it on his head. Leaving two hundred dollars, the key to the spare room and the ticket to San Antonio on a table in the hall, he took a long look around, his head bowed and shaking.
She’s the devil’s own spawn. My mother warned me. Turning one final time, he left the best portion of his life behind.